"I shall be all right," she said. "Dr. Shelton is a very good friend of mine. He knows that I have been ill for some time, and I am sure he would not send me a troublesome case. I know exactly what to do, thank you."
Wilfrid had only to take his departure. He had received his dismissal. He was not likely to see Beatrice again, therefore he could devote all his energies to the great fight before him. Nevertheless, he lingered in the hall on the off-chance of a last word with Beatrice, nor was he disappointed. The dining-room door opened in hesitating fashion and she stood before him. The hard, proud look had left her face now; her lips inclined to quiver.
"I cannot part with you like this," she murmured. "I have been thinking of what you said just now, and perhaps I am disposed to judge other people harshly."
"Did you ever know any prosperous man or woman who didn't?" Wilfred said with a bitter smile. "Oh, it maddens me to hear people prating their honesty when they have everything to make the path of existence smooth. Does it never strike these smug Pharisees that they would be born fools to be anything but honest? Why, there are thousands of criminals who die honourable and respected, either because they have never been found out or because they have never been under the necessity of knowing temptation. Take your case. What has your life been—one constant round of pleasure, a succession of years during which you have had everything you wanted and have been denied nothing? Do you suppose that you are any better than I am? Suppose you had somebody wholly dependent upon you for the mere necessaries of life, would you pry too minutely into things? But I am forgetting myself."
"Is it as bad as that?" Beatrice whispered.
"I can see no difference," Wilfrid said wearily. "If it were myself alone it would not matter. My household might be wrecked and everything taken away from me with impunity, because I have health and strength and would smile at the scandals of a place like Oldborough. But for the last four or five years I have promised my mother that I would settle down on shore and be near her in her old age. But why worry you with all this? Why should I picture her delight and pleasure in the new home she has to look after, which she regards merely as the beginning of my prosperity? And now I must go home to-night and tell her the bitter truth. I shall have to let her know that I have been deceiving her from the first, and that my so-called home is really the property of strangers. A few moments ago I had it in my power to secure that home. I had only to take a certain piece of paper and drop it in the fire and there would have been an end of the matter."
"That was when I came in," Beatrice whispered.
She was interested in spite of herself. She began to see there might be something in Wilfrid's point of view, and it was really dreadful that a rich man like Samuel Flower should stoop to crush another who was powerless to help himself. Indignation was warming Beatrice's blood. To her it almost seemed that Wilfrid would have been justified in his action. She turned towards him eagerly.
"But, surely, something can be done," she said. "I blame myself for not having seen your mother. If you will remember I promised to call upon her, but, really, there has been very little opportunity. Perhaps when we get back to Oldborough——"
"You forget that there will be no Oldborough for me after to-day," Wilfrid said quietly. "I am going to see this thing through to the bitter end, and your uncle and his tool, Cotter, can do what they please. Well, what is it?"